E-Brake Fail: ZR1 Rolls Down Steep Driveway Into Trailer

Imagine the horror of seeing your Corvette roll down a steep driveway and subsequently into a parked trailer. This scenario is not a fictional tale of “what if,” but it is a first hand account of the misfortune that befell a Corvette owner. A CorvetteForum member returned home, backed his ZR1 into the driveway and engaged the parking brake just as most drivers would do in the same situation; according to the poster he did not put the car in reverse as he normally would, but with the e-brake engaged he did not give it a second thought. As the driver exited the C6 to retrieve items from the hatch, the movement caused the car to roll. As he hurried around the car and tried to jump inside, the ZR1 had picked up too much speed resulting in the car owner being dragged along for some twenty feet.

Photo: CorvetteForum

Eventually the tire rolled over the owner’s leg, leaving him injured in his driveway as the ZR1 collided with a parked enclosed trailer. Based on the slope of the driveway the owner guessed that the car may have reached 40 MPH when it hit the tongue of the trailer; it hit hard enough to push the heavy trailer into the barn door, knocking the door off its track. For twenty minutes the ZR1 owner laid in his driveway waiting for help before someone arrived and called an ambulance, which took another thirty minutes to arrive.

In the end the ZR1 owner was incredibly lucky to have not sustained a broken leg, but did end up with some serious road rash and heavy-duty leg brace. Despite the ugly pictures detailing the damage to barn, trailer and C6, all three of these are repairable. Although this will prove to an expensive lesson for the owner, he wanted others to learn from his situation and remind others to put their cars in gear when parked, and to make sure the e-brake is fully engaged, not just up.